MORMONISM IN THE NEWS

2005-2006

Jeffs captured and arrested

August 31, 2006

Mormon church founder's arrest records rediscovered

A local historian has rediscovered historical records that detail how Mormon church founder Joseph Smith was arrested on four occasions while living in Chenango County in the mid-1820s.

Chenango County Historian Dale Storms said she turned over the newly found documents to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is based in Utah and has 11 million members worldwide.

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The documents include arrest warrants, court transcripts and legal bills from four separate charges filed against Smith. Storms said the cases involved Smith's involvement in glass looking, or treasure seeking, and being a disorderly person.

One of the documents includes a bill from then-South Bainbridge Justice Albert Neely to the county for services rendered. Included in the bill is a $2.68 charge for fees in examining the case of "Joseph Smith, the glass looker."

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NY Newsday, September 16, 2005

Mormon inmate sues prison over religious materials, worship

A Mormon inmate at the Louisiana State Penitentiary has been illegally denied access to church books and the prison has repeatedly refused to provide Mormon religious services, according to a suit filed Friday. Norman Sanders, [serving life sentence for murder] a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, contends that the prison's actions have violated his free-speech rights.

The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, cites a federal law passed in 2000 that forbids the control of a prisoner's private practice of religion, unless it clearly poses a safety or security risk.

Warden Burl Cain denied the allegations in the suit and said Sanders' religious freedom is not being restricted by the prison. "We have great respect for all religions," Cain said.

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Cain called the allegations "ridiculous" and said prison officials initially banned shipments that did not directly come from publishers, such as the church. Cain said that step was taken to prevent the smuggling of contraband, such as drugs, into the prison. But now, all religious book shipments are allowed, though security personnel search packages that do not come from publishers, he said.

"He was getting Mormon literature," Cain said. "He was just complaining about where he was getting it from."

Cain also said Mormons can worship together any time they wish at the prison. "I'm not going to keep the Mormons from having church," Cain said. "That's ridiculous."

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Dateline Alabama, August 26, 2005 by Alan Sayre, Associated Press

Book of Mormon Documentary

Those are the rough parameters of the family excursion outlined in "Journey of Faith." The new documentary records what scholars believe is the probable route followed between 600 B.C. and 589 B.C. by ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem who traveled to the Americas, as documented in the Book of Mormon, a volume of scripture sacred to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"Journey of Faith," completed over a five-year period in Israel, Jordan, Yemen, Oman and Guatemala, is being presented to audiences for the first time on all five nights of Brigham Young University's Campus Education Week, which begins today.

The documentary's estimation of the course traveled by the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi and his kin is based on the best research available, said S. Kent Brown, a BYU professor of ancient scripture who is featured in the film and will present it to Education Week attendees.

Brown said the film -- to be marketed on DVD in Utah and elsewhere later this year by Covenant Communications -- was made primarily for Latter-day Saints, but that he believes it might be of interest even to viewers with no connection to Mormonism. "We think we've done our homework well enough," he said, "that anyone could watch it and find the account to be believable, or at least credible."

The Daily Herald, August 15, 2005, page A1.

Note by Donna Morley: While you may want to get the above DVD for review, Ihighly recommend, for intellectual balance (and truth), the DVD " ". For more information about this DVD, go to our Mormon or Resource section. We also link you to the ministry that provides it. This video is free to Mormons.

Selling vintage Book of Mormon page by page stirs controversy

Helen Schlie said she hopes hundreds of Mormons are eager to snap up a piece of church history by buying a page from an 1830 first-edition Book of Mormon.

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The landmark book, one of the revered writings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has been on the block for up to $4,500 per page for about a year. Schlie, who lives in Gold Canyon, would only say that "quite a few" pages have sold.

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Arizona Central.com, August 9, 2005, Dale J. Neilson, Special for The Republic

LDS splinter groups growing

Fundamentalists: Most espouse polygamy as a tenet, but fewer actually practice it as their lifestyle

A new, informal survey pegs the number of fundamentalist Mormons in the Intermountain West and other areas at 37,000 - with fewer than half of those people living in plural households. The survey found that the largest group is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), based at the Utah/Arizona border. The fastest growing group is the Salt Lake Valley-based Apostolic United Brethren, which has added about 2,500 members in recent years.

Anne Wilde, a co-founder of Principle Voices of Polygamy, canvassed various polygamous communities and individuals after realizing an oft-quoted figure of 30,000 fundamentalists hadn't changed in years. "There are more now than there were, say, 10 years ago," said Wilde, adding she believes some of the self-reported tallies may be overstated, while others may be low. She released her findings last week at a state-sponsored polygamy workshop in St. George.

Wilde said, for instance, that the estimate of 15,000 independent fundamentalist Mormons is probably conservative. And the FLDS count may be high given the exodus of the so-called Lost Boys - a term that describes the hundreds of teen boys who have left or been pushed out of the church - and movement of members to other communities, she said.

Wilde said the term "fundamentalist Mormon" signifies belief in the early doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as espoused by church founder Joseph Smith and early leaders such as Brigham Young and John W. Taylor. Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon church has erred in abandoning early teachings, such as polygamy and banning of blacks from the priesthood. The LDS Church publicly gave up polygamy in 1890 as a condition of gaining statehood.

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Counts of plural households are hard to come by, given the fear most groups have of being identified. Consequently, estimates can vary widely.....

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In the 1996 book Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society, authors Irwin Altman and Joseph Ginat reported being told by one unidentified urban fundamentalist group that 20 percent to 40 percent of followers practiced polygamy, with a third of those relationships consisting of a man and two women.

The Salt Lake Tribune, Auguest 9, 2005 by Brooke Adams

Keeping members a challenge for LDS church

Mormon myth: The belief that the church is the fastest-growing faith in the world doesn't hold up

The claim that Mormonism is the fastest-growing faith in the world has been repeated so routinely by sociologists, anthropologists, journalists and proud Latter-day Saints as to be perceived as unassailable fact. The trouble is, it isn't true.

Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has more than 12 million members on its rolls, more than doubling its numbers in the past quarter-century. But since 1990, other faiths - Seventh-day Adventists, Assemblies of God and Pentecostal groups - have grown much faster and in more places around the globe. And most telling, the number of Latter-day Saints who are considered active churchgoers is only about a third of the total, or 4 million in the pews every Sunday, researchers say.